His influence even on the business men of the city of Boston and the legislature of the State of Massachusetts was the most remarkable phenomenon of the kind ever witnessed in that frugal and matter-of-fact community, for he had only to announce that he wanted for his museum or department in the University a donation or an appropriation, to obtain either, so absolutely recognized was his unselfish devotion to science by all classes.  There are few of us left who can remember the sudden shadow that fell on our community at his unexpected death, and the universal grief that told of the hold he had on the entire nation; and the mourning extended far beyond the circle of personal acquaintance with Agassiz.  Even men who had no interest in physical science took it into consideration on account of him, carried away by his enthusiastic advocacy of its advancement.  The religious world forgot the indignation at his repudiation of Adam in the refuge it found from absolute atheism in his affirmation of a Supreme Intelligence, as Creator of all things, though to theological contentions he never gave the slightest consideration.

It is needless to say that this was the effect, not of scientific education or of the capacity in the great majority of those who accepted his position to judge of a theory or a scientific line of demonstration, but of the dominance of personal character in the man, his inflexible honesty and disinterestedness.  The last time I saw him was when he came to make me a brief visit in a glen of the White Mountains, where I was encamped near a subject which I was painting, and which was in part composed of huge boulders, dropped in the gorge by a primeval glacier, and brought, perhaps, from beyond Lake Superior.  He had then had the first attack of the brain trouble, from which he was recovering, and was making a mountain trip where he could, if possible, study and rest at once.  But his want of common prudence in regard to overwork prevented his recovery, and he died just as he was beginning to elaborate his conclusions on the doctrine of evolution, for which he had a colossal plan, cut short in its opening.  He was always too hurried in his work, as if he knew that his life would not suffice for its completion, if indeed completion were possible in such work, and he persisted in accumulation of material without pause either to coordinate his ideas or to rest and reflect.  I one day said to him that I was intending to write a little book, and he exclaimed:  “Oh, I wish I had time to write a little book!  All my books come large, and I have not the time to condense them.”

CHAPTER XIV

LOWELL